Below is a reproduction of the text of "Let Poland be Poland" by Jan Pietrzak (1976), the song chosen by the Solidarity movement for its unofficial hymn: It was written after the unrests of Radom and Ursus factories and was not a call to armed struggle, nor a prayer for the country. It was, rather, a meditation on past wars, fought by generations of Poles to "Make Poland, Poland."

And faith would set forth into the field
From Chicago to Tobolsk
That Poland, that Poland
That Poland be Poland.

This text was written in 1976 by Jan Pietrzak to be performed by his cabaret troup, to
music supplied by the well-known composer of popular songs
Wlodzimierz Korcz. The song presents as a uniting theme of Polish history the aspiration
of Poland (in the sense of the Polish people) to be Poland (a free state of that people).
The song, which would conclude the cabaret's performances, became so popular that
Pietrzak was often called on to sing it again as an encore. Censorship authorities forbade
him from repeating the song, so that he would stand silent while the audience sang it. In
less trouble times, the song was awarded first prize at the Opole music festival in 1981.
During martial law it could not be performed in public at all. In 1995 Jan Pietrzak ran
for president of Poland and received approximately 1% of the vote.

Notes:

Rev. Piotr Sciegienny

(1801-90) organized a revolutionary conspiracy among peasants in the Lublin area against
Czarist rule. He wrote a political tract in 1842, under the guise of a papal encyclical,
which defended a Christian version of socialism. He was discovered and sentenced to a
Siberian labor camp.

Michal Drzymala

: a peasant who in 1904 tried to buy a plot of land in the Prussian partition
despite laws forbidding a Pole from constructing a permanent residence on such land. He
fought a legal battle for ten years and attracted great publicity to his case, living on
his property in a caravan wagon.

Cyprian Norwid (1821-83) is a well-known Polish Romantic poet and philosopher
who did not shy away from political themes relating to political repression in Poland.